Is it extortion to demand a refund?

Is it extortion to demand a refund? I've already posted reviews online, told the company I want a refund. Never said I'd take them down or else, only that I want a refund.

 

I guess it all depends on how large your refund will be. If you're going nuts over $5-$10 I will have one reaction to your question. If it's something like $50+ then it'll be an another reaction. I never bother with $5-$10 refunds. You get what you pay for as they say.

 

$7000, 100%

 

I see. Of course you can demand a refund. What was it for? Seems like a lot. Was it some SEO service?

 

I think its a pretty vague question. We don't know anything about the case - what were the money paid for, what promises weren't delivered so you would want a refund in the first place, does the company have any refund policy and were you aware of that when you purchased the service...really, its very easy to say "pursue your refund" but there are many factors that might influence the decision. Shed a little light and the advise you get would be much more relevant

 

Getting the refund isn't the issue for me, I really don't expect to get it.

 

It really depends on why you're demanding a refund. If they provided the service or delivered the product that you paid for, now you're demanding a refund or you'll malign their company around the Internet, yes that could be illegal depending on the laws where you live. As other has stated, you didn't give enough info to really tell one way or another.

 

You should read my post again.

 

It doesn't matter if the company doesn't have a refund policy or says that they do not do refunds. If the company didn't delver what it promised it owes you a refund. They broke their contract, not you. You have all the right to tear them down.

Our local news channels here often do reports on scammy / shady local companies. All it takes is one bad report on some local or national TV news channel and a company will be history.

 

I read your post. You said you want a refund, you never said why. For all we know you're the one in the wrong.

 

7K is a touch much for any service to not have a refund policy. For that price I would think that you'd have something in writing that specifies precisely what their obligations are. It doesn't look as if you purchased an SEO package so I'd hazard a guess that what you contracted for was a website or custom coding, which could be tangible goods that you can show were not delivered so I'd think you could get a refund for that or at least a partial one.

 

Since the Original Poster decided not to state what he purchased or why he wanted a refund I'll go a head and share an experience of mine.

I'm involved in marketing for auto dealerships. We had a dealership sign up for SEM. They set a budget of $3,500/month. The fee to manage the SEM account was $699/mo. Our creative department created several landing pages for their existing site and several images/banners to be used. We were able to track phones through toll free tracking, clicks, lead conversions etc. The only thing we couldn't track was an actual sale since that takes place offline. In the first month between calls, leads, and chats they received over 150 inquiries and a record breaking amount of unique hits to their site. When the dealer received the bill they flipped. They refused to pay us stating the SEM did nothing for them. We reviewed recorded inbound calls which indicated appointments being set. Again...we can't track sales because that is offline. After having our attorney reach out to them they tried to SETTLE with us for $2,000. We had to decline because the $3,500 was an overhead cost spent with Google. Our profit was $699. However, due to the labor of creating the landing pages and artwork there really wasn't a profit. The dealership was ignorant and clueless when it came to digital marketing. Long story short, they eventually paid up then blasted us online for being a scam. We didn't scam them. We provided a service and they benefited from it. Most likely they generated a couple sales too. You have to use an assumptive logic when reviewing web site metrics.

If your $7,000 was for a service provided or SEM you most likely will NOT get that money back. Because it has been spent. If you feel you have been cheated due to low performing results you need to review the metrics again and NOT the sales. Perhaps relevant traffic was delivered and you had a poor web site or a poor product.

Also to add... We had one dealership with a Special Finance web site spending over $5k a month for leads. They were selling 15-20 cars off from the leads averaging $2k per sale. They praised our service. We had another dealership with the same set up but told us the leads were crappy and they couldn't do anything with them. Once a lead has been generated it's your INTERNAL process that will determine the success of the lead.

 

It is always ok to ask for a refund, but I do think you need to be sure you are asking for the correct reason. For instance having worked in the food service industry for many years, you have customers that come in eat their entire meal and wait till the very end to tell you it was awful and they hated it, even though the server checked in on them multiple times. If you were not happy at any point, did not think you got what you paid for, etc this should be brought up as soon as it is brought to your attention so the company is given the chance to remedy the issue or help shed light on something you might be missing. If you consumed their goods or services, unhappily the entire time, perhaps you need to reconsider your thought process, motives, or something else. If you were generally just not impressed by the overall outcome of the situation pursue the refund.

 

Did you actually get a response from the company when you requested a refund? You've stated you asked for one but not the response, it is possible that they will simply refund you and this thread did not need to be opened.

If the answer was no refunds they will probably give you an explanation as to why. What exactly did you buy? What did they not provide you with? Really, more details are needed to answer the thread.

 

Agreed Netstar.. absolutely I see it happen all the time. I too do SEM and ethical SEO. I see people tell me that they didn't get any response from it, although that's infrequent thankfully, but when they do, we've usually got heatmaps telling us what contacts they've received from the site at the very least. Likewise when selling content this week, I did a full medical website for another marketing company. THey contacted me 4 days ago and said that the client didn't like the work and did not feel it was worth the 200 he spent. I fortunately have a practice habit. I take the url of the site and then place it in my software and check it weekly for a month.I also enter it into my copyscape database. If the page doesn't rise in the serps from what it originally was, then I offer them a revision. I visited the site, ran a comparison of my original text, laid it beside theirs and told them. what do you mean you don't like it, you're using it.. and its rising in search. they told me--and expected me to believe-- that while they had built the site, contracted the text, paid for the text and then tried to get a refund--that their client must have sneaked it onto his site without them knowing. Once I proved by screen cap that it was my text, they found several excuses and then said. oh wait, I guess we don't want a refund after all. There are just some people who have to try it on. That's why I asked what the scenario was. I agree it may be simply a case of misunderstanding or it may be a case of the provider actually not doing the work, but we have no way to know the whole story and make a good judgment with the information that we have.